Rod Walford

Biography

I was born in Shoreham, Sussex, England in 1950. At the age of eight, I went to the British Seamens' Boys' Home at Brixham in South Devon, where I remained until I left school in 1966. At the age of eleven, I was fortunate enough to gain admission to Homelands Technical High School in nearby Torquay. English was the subject that I enjoyed the most, and I will always be grateful to have been tutored by some very dedicated teachers during my five years at Homelands. I have an intense dislike of all cruelty, especially to children and animals, and become dismayed by man's ever increasing inhumanity to his fellow man, as depicted daily on television news. I enjoy most sports, motorsport in particular, and my other hobbies include gardening, chess, listening to music, playing my Technics organ and writing poetry. I feel that poetry is a way of communicating with people of like-minded spirit. It is an opportunity for expression of thought and feeling within the framework of the writer's own choosing. It allows the reader freedom to empathize or criticize, in much the same way as an art lover would study an artist's canvas. In many ways, I think a poem is similar to a painting. Unlike a novel, it usually takes only minutes to read, yet the impressions conveyed can linger in the memory like a vision, sometimes for years and sometimes for a lifetime. Over the years, I have learned many lessons the hard way. Through this has come a greater understanding of what are commonly referred to as old-fashioned moral values; the values of trust, loyalty, true friendship and, above all, love. I believe this to be the greatest of all emotions, and I have tried to reflect its power in much of my poetry. My favourite classic poets are Lord Byron and Rudyard Kipling. Kipling's poem "If" says it all for me. I constantly refer to it, either for inspiration or in times of hardship. Byron's mastery of language also inspires me when I am searching for a semantic illustration

Where to find Rod Walford online

Books

Timeless
Price: $5.00 USD. Words: 2,490. Language: English. Published: May 29, 2011 . Categories: Fiction » Anthologies » Poetry - single author
A collection of Rod Walford's best known and loved classic poems.

Rod Walford's tag cloud

heartwarming    inspirational    new zealand    poems    poetry    rhyming